


Artistic License

by SevereStorms, wreckingthefinite



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Belly Kink, Chubby Kink, Feeding Kink, Food Kink, Hand Feeding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, Post-WWII AU, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sexual Content, Tiny Artist Steve, Weight Gain, as close to fluff as we can go without catching on fire, chubby bucky, slight D/s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 10:23:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7098841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevereStorms/pseuds/SevereStorms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingthefinite/pseuds/wreckingthefinite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tiny beach portrait artist (and gentle dom) Steve and WWII vet/amputee (and cocky, impossible sub) Bucky, reunited in postwar Brooklyn, with lots of food and sketching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artistic License

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greyskygirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskygirl/gifts).



When Bucky comes home from the war, Steve hardly even recognizes him.

His injury is still fresh, he’s gaunt and pale, a shadowy version of his former self. He’s cold all the time, shaking with fevers and chills, and Steve sleeps next to him at night, under every blanket he can lay hands on, sweating and feeling the sharp bones of ribs and spine and pelvis poking up through Bucky’s skin. 

Bucky can’t stomach the bland foods the Army nurses recommend for invalids, so after a few days of uneaten meals, Steve goes out in search of foods to tempt Bucky’s scant appetite. Creamy potato dumplings from the Italian market are a success, as are the meat pies, fried potatoes, vegetable fritters, cakes and danishes from food vendors at the Moore Street Market. He spends every mealtime with Bucky, feeding him, keeping him warm, making sure his bandages are clean and comfortable, reading to him, helping him fill out all the paperwork for the GI Bill and Army unemployment. 

“Wish I could at least earn my keep,” Bucky says one morning, when Steve wakes him up with coffee and turnovers in bed. “Hate to be a burden on you.” He sips coffee, sets the cup down on the tray, then breaks off a bit of one of the turnovers - cherry, his favorite - and eats it. He eats with a deliberation borne of necessity, one-handed. Steve’s hands itch to take the pastry, break off pieces and feed them to him, as he had done for the first several weeks of Bucky's convalescence, but Bucky had insisted on learning some kind of self-sufficiency. 

Which is good, Steve reminds himself. Watching Bucky eat is also good. “You’re not a burden,” he says. “And you’ll be back on your feet in no time.” 

“Already feels like it’s been too long,” Bucky says. “Wish I could work, do _something._ Even if it weren’t for you footing all the bills, it’s no good, feel like I’m not serving a purpose anymore.” 

Steve looks at him, at his pale, pretty face, his soft features underscored by his thinness. “You know,” he says. “I was thinking I might go down to Coney Island this summer, draw portraits on the boardwalk. I did that a little last year, I made a decent chunk of change. Thing is, I have to work fast – gotta be able to whip something off in about five minutes. I need to practice.” 

“You want to practice on me?” Bucky asks, and he looks so pleased and hopeful, it makes Steve’s heart feel sore. 

“If you think you can sit still.” 

And of course Bucky fidgets a little, but he seems to like it when Steve reaches out to tilt his chin up, planting little kisses on the corners of his mouth as he bosses him around. "Stop blinking so much," he says. "Stop licking your lips, god, you're the most distracting person in Brooklyn," and "Stop shoving your hair around." 

In short, it's fun, drawing Bucky. But then Steve hands over the finished sketch, and Bucky's forehead creases in a slight frown.

“Is it really that bad?” he asks.

“Bad?” Steve asks, nervously. “What do you mean?” 

“I mean – well." He holds up the sketch, as if Steve hadn’t really seen it. “It's good - everything you draw is great. But - you wanna sell art to tourists, you might want to sugarcoat it a little, you get me? Could you maybe make me look a little less like a half-starved orphan?” 

Steve looks at the drawing, then up at Bucky. He’s definitely gotten everything right; Bucky’s hair has grown a bit longer than convention dictates for a man, and he’s put on a few pounds, but he’s still smaller than he’s ever been in his adult life. As he studies the lines on the paper, though, Steve can see what he’s done wrong. 

He’s always been deft at capturing the few essential lines that make up a person, but he’s focused too much on the technical aspects, the accuracy, and not enough on the feeling. The drawing is technically correct, but perhaps too much so. 

He tries again, this time homing in on Bucky’s smile, on the way Bucky’s looking at him and the way it makes his heart go warm and liquid in his chest. This time, he works with an eye to more than just the shapes and sizes of things; this time, he focuses on everything he loves. Bucky’s smile, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, the way his hair sweeps up over his left eyebrow and curls over his forehead. 

“That’s better,” Bucky says, when he looks at the next drawing. “Jeez, that’s a lot better, Stevie. Guess that’s a lesson for you, huh? Gotta take a little artistic license. Good thing I was here to help out,” he adds, leaning back on his pillows, arm folded behind his head, and the expression on his face is so quintessentially Bucky that Steve draws him again, although it takes a little longer, because he keeps taking breaks to kiss his smiling mouth.

*

Over the next several weeks, Steve’s drawings start to look more and more like the Bucky he remembers. Bucky’s health returns, which is good, indisputably – but Steve misses feeding him, misses the sweet way Bucky had taken each spoonful of food, or even – sometimes – the way he’d taken a bit of bread or fruit straight from Steve’s hand. It had started off innocently enough, truly; Steve’s only concern had been making sure Bucky got better, just that, only that. 

But then, once he’s put back the weight he’d lost, plus several extra pounds for good measure? Steve doesn’t stop buying and making a little extra, and ensuring that it finds its way onto Bucky’s plate. And okay, maybe “a little extra” turns into “a lot extra,” given that Bucky’s appetite is ravenous, once he’s back on his feet. 

That spring, Bucky starts classes at NYU, and they have less time together. Bucky's busy studying, Steve's busy working, and he doesn't draw Bucky anymore - or at least not much, and not when Bucky's paying attention. On the rare occasions when he does, he finds his pen sliding into more curves than planes, more convexities than shadowed hollows, and this brings him a strange pleasure. He doesn't show the finished sketches to Bucky, tells himself it's just practice, but he knows it's more than that.

At night, when they lie curled together under the covers, Steve’s hands find those curves, all that softness and abundance, and it’s electrifying. He doesn’t know what it is about the slow expansion of Bucky’s waistline that makes his pulse pound and his breath stop in his throat. He doesn’t know why, when it’s dark and Bucky’s asleep, his dick stirs at the thought of the growing curve of Bucky’s belly, the softness of his broad chest, way his jawline has blurred and his chin is threatening to double. 

Bucky seems oblivious to the added weight, and Steve feels shy about mentioning it. He’s careful not to let his eyes linger too long when Bucky takes off his shirt; he doesn't say anything on the nights when Bucky shifts uncomfortably under the pressure of a particularly big dinner, tugging at the waistband of his trousers, sometimes even loosening his belt to give his belly a little extra space. 

He’s afraid of what might happen if Bucky sees what he sees. He doesn’t want Bucky to feel criticized, of course, but he also doesn’t want the steady upward weight trend to stop. 

Not that that seems likely to happen anytime soon. 

“God, I’m really full,” Bucky says, one night after dinner. He pushes his chair a little away from the table and leans back, hand on his round tummy, and Steve’s eyes flick to the straining buttons of his shirt for an instant before he aims them determinedly back at the ceiling. He imagines how he'd capture this, the fullness of Bucky's belly, the way the tight fabric wrinkles around each buttonhole, if he were drawing it.

“There’s plenty left,” he says, pushing the plate of chicken and bread pudding across the table. “I’d hate to waste it.” He looks expectantly across at Bucky, who shrugs, sits up a little straighter, and– with a small grunt of discomfort that Steve feels with his whole body –spoons the rest of the bread pudding onto his plate. The heady rush of arousal that Steve feels as Bucky works his way though the rest of the food is impossible to stop; his repressed desire spills over the edges of his restraint. 

The instant Bucky sets down his fork and leans back, pressing a hand against his belly and hiccupping a little, Steve straddles his lap and kisses him, kisses his mouth and his jaw and his throat, hands working at his belt and fly. He absolutely itches to slide them up under Bucky’s shirt, to feel the taut, full curve of his gut under the tight cotton fabric. He wants so many things, too many things, and he lets Bucky know all of it with demanding kisses, with bites into the soft flesh of his lower lip, with filthy whispers in his ear. 

“I don’t know, Stevie,” Bucky says, looking down uncertainly at the curve of his stuffed belly. “I – I’m really fucking full.” 

Steve groans and kisses him harder, insistent. "I don't care, Bucky, c’mon."

Bucky obliges him, and Steve can count on one hand the number of times he's come harder than he does that night, lying on his back and watching Bucky fuck him, Bucky's belly round and full between them, white cotton shirt damp with sweat, clinging to the heavy curve. 

Afterwards, Bucky sprawls out on top of the sheets, his breath slowing, dark hair tousled, skin damp with heat and effort, round belly rising and falling in steady breaths as he drifts off to sleep. He’s stunning, and Steve's gaze lingers on him, drinking in the sight, because Bucky's eyes are closed and he can’t see Steve watching. 

*

“How come you never draw me anymore?” Bucky asks. 

It’s the first summer since the war ended, and the Coney Island Boardwalk is packed with people escaping the heat of the city, riding roller coasters, sunbathing, and generally having a wonderful time. It’s a beautiful day, the war is over, and the relief and optimism are almost as tangible as the sun beating down on the warm brown sand of the beach. Steve’s been drawing portraits for a nickel apiece on the boardwalk all summer. Bucky comes down from time to time to visit, and Steve treats him to lunch at the hot dog stand. 

“Huh?” Steve asks, taking a bite of hot dog to buy some time to think. 

“You draw everyone else now, you ain’t got time for me anymore?” Bucky asks. He grins, pulls a nickel from his pocket, and presses it into Steve’s hand. “C’mon, I want a souvenir,” he says. “You should give me a discount, actually, since you get to leave out a whole arm.” 

Steve’s eyes drift dreamily down from Bucky’s face to the swell of his belly, and he smiles. This gorgeous curve, the weight Bucky’s piled on since he got home, the forty pounds ( _at least,_ Steve thinks, _it must be at least forty_ ) he’s packed onto his thick frame? It's the prettiest thing he's ever seen, and in his mind, he's drawn it a hundred times, at least.

God, Steve wants to. He wants the implicit permission to look at Bucky’s every curve and swell, wants to shape them in charcoal and ink as much as he wants to map them with his lips and hands, wants to watch Bucky’s sweetly rounded form take shape on the canvas. He wants to, but they haven’t talked about it. Haven’t acknowledged it. Is this the time? Steve isn't sure.

“C’mon,” Bucky says, tugging on Steve’s sleeve, and Steve can’t help it – looking at Bucky, who’s tilted his cap rakishly off to one side, who’s talking with his mouth full and somehow not being disgusting? He really can’t resist. 

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll give it a shot.” 

*

“How do you want me?” Bucky asks, poking the last of his third hot dog into his mouth. 

For some reason, the question has Steve blushing a little, his eyes making a couple of quick passes up and down Bucky’s body. “Uh—however you want to be, Buck,” he says, clearing his throat a few times. 

“Well shit, Steve, you’re the artist.” Bucky grins, standing up from the bench he’s been sharing with Steve and grabbing up the rickety little chair Steve always drags out with him, for his subjects to sit in. He spins it around and straddles it, leaning over and resting his right elbow on the back. His ma hates it when he “doesn’t sit properly,” but he always suspects that Steve kind of likes it. 

While Steve draws, Bucky watches him work, admiring him, the way his incongruously big hands slide over the paper, moving quickly, confidently. He likes that about Steve, the way he so rarely hesitates. Bucky figures you have to be that way—brave, not afraid to commit to something—in order to draw the way Steve does. No hesitation. Just quick, clean strokes. 

Steve looks nervous when he hands the paper over, like he’s afraid Bucky won’t like it—which is stupid. Bucky thinks everything Steve’s ever drawn is aces. When he first got home from the war, he’d make Steve draw him all sorts of things, funny little sketches of animals or their neighbors, just to keep him entertained. Steve would always want to crumple up the sheets and toss them away, once he was done, but Bucky was always saving them, whenever he could. He has a whole stack of them, in a drawer by their bed. 

“It’s just—just for fun, Buck. Probably not that great,” Steve says, weirdly shy, and Bucky starts to protest, but the words shrivel up into silence before he can get them out, and all he can do is look down at the man Steve has drawn. The man Steve sees when he looks at Bucky. 

He’s grinning, cocky and confident, and his dimples are deep, the way they always are when he’s really smiling. And he’s—he’s fat. 

That’s the only word for it. Fat. Steve drew a picture of Bucky, and he’s fat. 

His cheeks are full, rounded out so that his cheekbones are just the barest of suggestions, and Steve’s carefully penciled in the shadow of a double chin. And that’s not even the worst part. 

The worst part is the way his stomach is rounded, full and obvious, pressed up against the rails of the chair’s back to highlight how soft his gut is, the way his pudge squishes up between the slats. Steve even added in a few little stress marks around each of his shirt buttons, clearly illustrating how his tummy is padded with chub, pushing up against his shirt and straining the fabric a bit. 

Even his thighs are thick, pulling the fabric of his trousers taut. 

“Jesus, Steve,” he says, trying to find his voice. “I—uh—it’s real good, I just.” He coughs. “Guess I hadn’t looked at myself in a while.”

“You look real good, Buck,” Steve says, his voice lower than usual, his blue eyes intense and focused. “I can’t even do you justice, not really.”

Bucky gets up from the chair and plops down beside Steve on the bench, looking down at his gut when he does it, making himself acknowledge the way his tummy rolls out over his waistband, a round, undeniable belly. 

“I—I knew I put on a few, but I guess maybe it’s a few more than I thought,” Bucky says, wincing a little and peering up at Steve from under his eyelashes. 

“You got chubby, Buck,” Steve says.

“Shoulda told me, pal,” Bucky says, running a hand up the side of his stomach, poking experimentally at the little rise of pudge on each side of his waist. Love handles. He’s got love handles. 

Steve shrugs. “What was I gonna say?”

“What you just said. _You got chubby, Buck,_ ” Bucky parrots.

“Didn’t want you to think I wanted you to lose it,” Steve says, his cheeks turning a pretty shade of pink. 

Bucky cocks his head, eyeballing the portrait in his hand. “You like this guy? Double chin and a pot belly sticking out? I mean, he’s already down an arm. You want him fat, too?” He tries to make the words come out lightly, but it’s hard. 

Steve looks at him, his expression serious. “At first I just wanted you well fed. Wanted to take care of you.” He shrugs. “Then I—then you put on a few extra pounds, and you looked so good, Buck. Soft. I like it.” 

_I like it_. Bucky blinks, letting those three words echo around in his mind, along with a series of memories that suddenly make him blush a little. Memories of lying in bed, shortly after the war, letting Steve spoon rich potato soup and creamy chowder into his mouth. Or, later, of meat pies and fried potatoes, crispy and glistening with grease. Or, more recently, nights where he ate a third helping at dinner, working his way through enough food that his tummy would ache. 

“That why you’re always bringing home those cherry turnovers and all that stuff?” He sneaks another glance up at Steve.

“You love those,” Steve says, grinning at him. “You ate four of them for breakfast.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “That’s why I’ve got this,” he says, jostling his tummy a little, torn between amusement and horror at the way it jiggles under his palm. 

“That’s why I keep bringing them home, honey.”

“Pervert.” 

“Shh.” Steve sets down his sketchpad and jerks his chin toward one of the little storefronts a little farther down the boardwalk. “Want an ice cream cone?” 

“Oh my god, you’re serious.”

“I’ll buy you one. A big one.” 

“Damn it, Steve. If you buy it, you know I’m gonna eat it.”

“Yup, I do.”

When Steve comes back with a triple chocolate cone, Bucky eats the whole thing, and Steve draws him again, ice cream in hand this time. He draws everything, just the way he sees it, just the way he loves it, no artistic license needed. 

**Author's Note:**

> It was just [greyskygirl's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskygirl/pseuds/greyskygirl) (aka [whowaswillbe's](http://whowaswillbe.tumblr.com/)) birthday, and so we asked what she wanted, and she told us. Um, we somehow managed to write her a birthday fic that has almost nothing to do with that prompt, but we hope she will enjoy it anyway, and pretend we are not the worst prompt-fillers to ever attempt to fill a prompt. WWWB/GSG, hope you had a great birthday!
> 
> Feel free to come follow us on tumblr at [missjanedoeeyes](http://www.missjanedoeeyes.tumblr.com) and [DelightfulExcess](http://d-lightfulexcess.tumblr.com)


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